Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Britain is complicit in mass slaughter on a horrifying scale. But those campaigning for our votes pretend it’s not happening
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This week alone, Israel has threatened “all out war” with Lebanon, while Hezbollah’s leader threatens a war “without rules or ceilings”, dangling the prospect of a far graver bloodbath than that unleashed by Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza. The spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces has admitted that Hamas cannot be destroyed militarily: this amounts to a confession that the central war goal used to justify the slaughter of tens of thousands is unattainable. And the UN has released a report offering evidence as to how Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza may have systematically violated the laws of war on protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Remember: this is an onslaught that Britain’s government and opposition squarely backed at the start. Back in October, our prime minister promised “unequivocal” support for Israel for all time, while his inevitable successor, Keir Starmer, backed Israel’s right to cut off energy and water, though he later claimed he had been misinterpreted, and had never supported this. Neither political party will commit to ending arms sales, even though the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court – himself a British lawyer – has requested arrest warrants for both the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. This itself points to what should be a major domestic political scandal. Both party leaders should be scrutinised for having backed what became one of the great atrocities of our age, despite the bloodcurdling promises made by Israeli leaders from the start.
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Given that this is a question of life and death on a colossal scale, our politicians should be forced to answer. Yet when our foreign secretary, David Cameron, was interrogated last week on the BBC Today programme, the interviewer spent the slot questioning him about trust and housebuilding. On Thursday night’s BBC Question Time leaders’ special, there was not a single question or answer on Gaza.
The UK’s energy bills were £22bn higher over the past decade than they would have been if Conservative governments had not cut “green crap” climate policies.
In 2013, then-prime minister David Cameron was infamously reported to have asked colleagues to “get rid of the green crap”, referring to climate policies supporting better home insulation.
His government later scrapped a “zero-carbon homes” (ZCH) standard for new-build homes, ended support for solar power and blocked the expansion of onshore wind.
The number of homes getting insulated each year is now 98% below 2012 levels, while the growth of onshore wind and solar remains far below previous peaks.
Carbon Brief’s new analysis updates figures published in January 2022, showing that the “green crap” rollbacks left UK billpayers more exposed to record gas prices during the energy crisis.
The £22bn added to energy bills since 2015 as a result of the rollbacks includes £9bn due to not having built more cheap onshore wind, £5bn due to poorly insulated homes, £5bn due to low solar deployment and another £3bn because new homes were less efficient than the ZCH standard.
In total, the UK’s gas demand is 99 terawatt hours (TWh, 14%) higher than it would have been if climate measures had been added at earlier rates, the analysis shows. This means the UK’s net gas imports are 31% higher than they would have been with more “green crap” in place.
‘Green crap’ cuts
In November 2013, a Sun frontpage reported then-prime minister David Cameron’s “solution to soaring energy price[s]” with the headline: “Get rid of the green crap.”
Cameron’s government, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, went on to make a series of changes, including cutting spending on energy-efficiency improvements and introducing the “green deal” efficiency scheme, later described by the National Audit Office as a “fail[ure]”.
The number of homes getting their lofts or cavity walls insulated each year plummeted almost immediately – by 92% and 74% in 2013, respectively – and has never recovered.
The foreign secretary travelled on the hired Embraer Lineage 1000 for a five-day visit to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia last week
The Tories have been slammed for their rank hypocrisy, after former Prime Minister David Cameron hired a £42 million private jet to travel around Asia, costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds, while the government prepare to slash benefits for people suffering from depression or anxiety.
The foreign secretary travelled on the hired Embraer Lineage 1000 for a five-day visit to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia last week, the Mirror reported.
The shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, posted on X: “I get that David Cameron may need to charter a plane when travelling to multiple countries in one week, but that does not justify spending hundreds of thousands of pounds at taxpayers’ expense to hire one of the most luxurious private jets on the market.”
The taxpayer is footing the bill for the private jet at the same time as the Tories cut benefit payments for those with disabilities and physical and mental health conditions.
A World Central Kitchen vehicle hit by an Israeli drone in Gaza. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy via Alamy)
New court documents reveal that ministers David Cameron and Kemi Badenoch authorised UK arms sales to Israel right after an airstrike killed three British charity workers in Gaza.
On 1 April, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on a convoy of aid workers in Gaza, killing three Britons, a Polish national, a Palestinian, an American-Canadian dual citizen, and an Australian.
The Israeli Air Force carried out the bombing with a Hermes 450 drone. According to Campaign Against the Arms Trade, this drone may be powered by a R902(W) Wankel engine produced in Britain by UAV Engines Limited (UEL).
New court documents show that the UK government decided to continue arms exports to Israel on 8 April, one week after the strike on the aid workers who were employed by the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK).
The revelation will put additional pressure on the Foreign Office to justify its decision not to suspend arms sales to Israel.
‘Killed with British weapons’
Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq challenged the UK government today in court over arms sales to Israel.
Documents provided to the court show that the UK government has conducted five legal assessments of the situation in Gaza since 18 December.
One of those assessments, which covered the period 18 December to 29 February, was delivered to UK foreign secretary David Cameron on 28 March.
On 3 April, two days after the Israeli airstrike on the aid workers, Cameron used this assessment to recommend that the UK continue arms sales to Israel.
Five days later, UK trade secretary Kemi Badenoch authorised the continuation of extant licences and new licences to Israel, according to GLAN’s press statement.
David Cameron stumbles while defending Israel on Sky News
The West jumps through rhetorical hoops to defend Israel and condemn Iran after Iranians respond to attack on diplomatic premises in Syria
It is difficult to dispute the major escalation that Israel undertook on April 1 when it bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus, assassinating a top Iranian Commander. This was a major escalation that the West—namely, the US, UK, and France—failed to condemn during an April 2 UN Security Council meeting.
On April 13, after multiple warnings, Iran retaliated—becoming the first country to directly attack Israel in 33 years—launching “extensive” missiles and drone strikes at military targets within historic Palestine.
The attack did not result in any casualties. No hospital attacks, no mass graves, no thousands of women and children dead. Iran showed no intention of creating a mass casualty event, and predictably, many of the dozens of Iranian missiles were intercepted.
Although to some, this is a sign of Iranian weakness, not restraint. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes, Iran’s attack “showed the whole world that Israel and its Western allies have far superior anti-missile capabilities than Iran has missile capabilities.” Friedman also claims that Iran revealed “that President Biden was able to predict almost the exact hour of attack over a day in advance,” citing that fact that Biden warned Iran not to attack the day prior. Friedman does not take into account that Iranian officials had been openly stating their intention to retaliate against the Zionist state since the embassy attack in Damascus.
This is a point of view seemingly shared by Biden, who said shortly after the attack that “Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks—sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel.” It is unclear how the attacks were unprecedented, however, given that following the embassy attack, Iran’s Ambassador to Damascus Hossein Akbari, whose residence was bombed in the strike, said, “We will give a decisive response to this action.”
It is international relations common sense that the bombing of an embassy is a major escalation. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, following Iran’s striking of Israel, that “the principle of inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel must be respected in all cases in accordance with international law, as I stated when condemning the 1 April attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.”
David Cameron, British Foreign Secretary, went on Sky News to denounce the Iranian attack on Israel, but was thrown off guard when a journalist asked, “What would Britain do if a hostile nation flattened one of our consulates?”
Cameron stuttered through his response, “Well, we would take very strong action.”
David Cameron: Iran attacking Israel was "reckless"
Journalist: What would Britain do if our consulate was flattened?
David Cameron: Well, w-we would take very strong action…
Israel has been attacking both Iran and Iranian targets for years. On January 20, Israel killed five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Damascus. At the time, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian claimed that, “although the Zionist enemy has destroyed Gaza on a large scale and martyred tens of thousands of people, it has not achieved any of its goals, so it is trying to make up for its defeat by resorting to blind terrorism.”
In February of last year, Iran accused Israel of attacking a military workshop complex in Isfahan. Iranian oil tankers carrying oil to Lebanon through Syria were attacked late on November 8. According to IRIB, Iran’s state news source, the attacks were carried out using “Israeli drones.” Israel has openly boasted about committing covert operations against Iran, including the assassination of a nuclear scientist in 2020.
Biden reiterated the US’s “ironclad” support for Israel, promising a Group of Seven (G7) diplomatic response. However, following a similar pattern of recent Biden administration responses to Israeli aggression, a Biden official leaked to Axios that the president privately warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would not support a counterattack against Iran. Biden has severaltimesexpressed private frustrations with Netanyahu as the genocide against Gaza continues to unfold, but continues to send massive weapons shipments to Israel and provide unconditional support in public.
Israel’s war cabinet is now meeting to discuss potential responses. According to a source communicating with NBC News, an Israeli counterattack could be imminent.
