In the aftermath of the Iraq war, several attempts were made to establish an inquiry surrounding the conduct of British military operations. Published in 2016, the Chilcot inquiry found serious failings in the British government, which ignored the warnings of millions of ordinary people over its disastrous decision to go to war.
History is repeating itself. Today, the death toll in Gaza has reportedly exceeded 61,000. Two Israeli officials are wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Britain has played a highly influential role in Israel’s military operations, including the sale of weapons, the supply of intelligence and the use of Royal Air Force bases in Cyprus.
Transparency and accountability are cornerstones of democracy. Therefore we are demanding an independent, public inquiry into the UK’s involvement in Israel’s military assault in Gaza. This inquiry should establish exactly what decisions have been taken, how they have been made and what consequences they have had. Any meaningful inquiry would require the full cooperation of ministers involved in decision-making processes since October 2023.
Many people believe that the government has taken decisions that have implicated officials in the gravest breaches of international law. These charges will not go away until there is an inquiry with the legal power to establish the truth.
Jeremy CorbynIndependent Alliance, Brendan O’Hara Middle East spokesperson, Scottish National party, Carla Denyer Co-leader, Green party, Brian LeishmanScottish Labour, Diane AbbottLabour, Zarah SultanaIndependent, Richard Burgon Labour
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/QILgUHrdWRE
MILLSTONE: Parts of the Labour Party see Nigel Farage’s Reform as worthy of emulation
You only have to look at the dire polling of Labour’s sister parties in Europe to see that aping the hard right on migration leads to spectacularly bad results, argues DIANE ABBOTT MP
LABOUR is facing calls, both internally and from its enemies, that it should become even more anti-migrant in its policies and rhetoric in order to stave off the growing threat of Reform UK. This is a morally and politically bankrupt approach that will lead Labour to disaster.
If anyone doubts that, just take a look at some of the traditional left parties in Europe who have trodden that path, they have largely been reduced to a rabble.
The BBC reports that a group of “around 40 MPs” calling themselves the Red Wall group are calling in the government for a stronger message on immigration to stave off the electoral threat posed by Reform UK.
At the same time, there has been the proposed revival of the odious Blue Labour group with effectively the same aim. It has received a shot in the arm with the invitation of its ideological leader Maurice Glasman to Donald Trump’s inauguration. This is a direct foreign intervention in British politics and specifically into Labour politics as the Maga reactionaries try to reshape Western politics in their own image.
Labour has also decided to boost Reform UK’s advertising, by issuing ads which mimic their content and style on deportations.
WELFARE AUSTERITY: (L to R) Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall; Keir Starmer
DIANE ABBOTT MP condemns the government’s vicious attack on benefits that callously denies the pandemic’s impact on the working class while pushing vulnerable people into unsuitable work through punitive measures
THERE is now overwhelming evidence that the government is reimposing austerity measures. This is true in relation to income tax, public spending after next year, higher energy bills, bus fares and other prices determined by government.
But perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of austerity has been the planned cuts to the welfare bill.
Yet Keir Starmer, Liz Kendall and a host of other ministers have done their best to dispel any complacency on this issue. People who are on welfare, for whatever reason, are in the government’s firing line.
Their attack has two prongs. The first is that there is a blanket assertion that the welfare bill is “too high” and the second is that they will crack down on benefit fraud. Deliberately or otherwise, it is clear that these two issues are closely connected.
Promising “radical reforms to get Britain working,” in a recent article, Starmer went on to say, “In the coming months, Mail on Sunday readers will see even more sweeping changes. Because make no mistake, we will get to grips with the bulging benefits bill blighting our society.”
Deputy Labour Party Leader Angela Rayner calls for police to kill and harass innocent people.
There are news reports that Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott have been urged to apologise for backing gangster Chris Kaba after criticising police following his death. [ed: uncertain that he should be called a gangster.]
He was unarmed and police didn’t know who he was when he was killed. There were claims following his inquest that he had shot somebody 6 days previous to him getting killed by police. He was never tried of this alleged crime of course because he was dead. You can’t retrospectively justify his killing when an unarmed, unknown man was killed by armed police.
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). I am proud that I participated at one of these protests. It was a community response of people opposing Fascism and nobody else should be permitted to claim credit for it.
Counterprotesters gathered ahead of potential anti-immigration demonstrations on August 7, 2024 in Walthamstow, United Kingdom. (Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images)
“The majority of people in Britain abhor Robinson and the far right,” says one joint statement. “We are the majority, they are the few.”
From Birmingham, Brighton, and Bristol, to Liverpool, London, Newcastle, and Northampton, counterprotesters gathered across the United Kingdom on Wednesday to decry far-right riots and attacks against immigrants and Muslims.
Since the weekend, far-right protesters have targeted mosques, libraries, and even a hotel housing asylum-seekers—responding at least in part to online disinformation about the suspect in a deadly stabbing attack on a children’s dance class. The demonstrations and expectations they would continue Wednesday evening drew anti-racists to the streets in several U.K. cities.
“The far right are spreading racism, Islamophobia, and hatred,” says a Stand Up to Racism statement published in the Daily Mirror Wednesday and signed by actors, artists, drag performers, journalists, labor leaders, musicians, peace advocates, and members of Parliament—including Jeremy Corbyn, an Independent, along with Labour’s Diane Abbott and Zarah Sultana.
When far-right mobs seek to sow hate and division, we must fight back with our message of love, hope and solidarity.
From London to Liverpool, Bristol to Brighton and numerous other cities, the people have taken to the streets to resist racist attacks on our communities. pic.twitter.com/8LA54PPmoi
— Peace & Justice Project (@corbyn_project) August 7, 2024
The statement calls out far-right activist Tommy Robinson as well as political figures in the United Kingdom—including MP Nigel Farage of Reform U.K. and former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman—and across Europe, emphasizing that “racism and Islamophobia in Parliament is leading to racism and Islamophobia on the streets.”
Despite Labour’s unpopularity under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the party last month ended 14 years of Conservative rule at the national level with a landslide electoral victory. While Starmer has condemned the recent far-right riots, critics including Sultana have called on him and other British to explicitly denounce the attacks as Islamophobic.
“All those who oppose this must join in a united mass movement powerful enough to drive back the fascist. The majority of people in Britain abhor Robinson and the far right,” the new joint statement says. We are the majority, they are the few. Britain has a proud history of defeating fascists and racists. We can defeat them again. We must Stand Up to Racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism.”
In response to such calls, as The Independent reported Wednesday, “up to 25,000 protesters, some chanting ‘hate not welcome’ and ‘refugees welcome here,’ gathered in towns and cities like Walthamstow, Finchley, Birmingham, Newcastle, and Blackpool as nearly 100 far-right rallies failed to materialize.”
Anti-fascist counter protest outside the targeted refugee centre in Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. Growing fast! Not a fascist in sight. pic.twitter.com/8SaG4Zrrw9
In Birmingham, several hundred anti-racism protesters—some carrying signs such as “no place for hate” and “bigots out of Brum”—gathered outside a migrant center in the Jewellery Quarter.
A large group then marched into the center of the city, with no signs of any far-right groups in the area.
Meanwhile, “counterprotesters are outnumbering anti-immigration protesters in Brighton tonight by about a hundred to one,” and chanting, “Fascist scum, off our streets,” according to Brighton and Hove News.
Update of the protests in Brighton this evening.
Five or six far right protesters surrounded by police (halfway up the photo on the RHS), surrounded by an entire street of anti-fascist protestors.
— abigaildombey.bsky.social (@AbigailDombey) August 7, 2024
BBC News reported that “thousands of people gathered in Old Market in Bristol to counter a rumored anti-immigration rally,” specifically, “claims on social media that protestors were planning to target an immigration lawyer’s business premises.”
“Bristol is a very vibrant and a welcoming city,” a man who is originally from Gambia named Habib told the BBC. “Bristolians would not allow anybody to bring chaos into Bristol… I’m gonna join the Bristolians to stop what’s going to happen tonight.”
“Like the old saying goes—divided we fall, together we stand,” he said. “I think standing here together tonight is very significant.”
The crowd in Bristol chanted, “Say it out loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here,” a message repeated by signs carried in the English city and beyond it. Their posters and banners also forcefully denounced racism and fascism.
“In Liverpool they held banners such as ‘Nans Against Nazis,’ ‘Immigrants welcome. Racists not,’ and ‘When the poor blame the poor only the rich win,” The Guardian reported. “An elderly man with a portable speaker resting on his walking frame played John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ on repeat.”
In the city known as the birthplace of The Beatles, counterprotesters were protecting the Asylum Link building, according to The Liverpool Echo. Addressing the crowd, Ewan Roberts, who manages the center thanked everyone for coming out “even when you weren’t asked” and declared that “the people are stronger when they are united.”
Thousands turn out in Liverpool to stand against racism.
All across the country.
From Newcastle to Liverpool, to Bristol, to London, to Brighton.
Counterprotesters came together in multiple locations across London, with some chanting, “When fascists attack, we fight back.”
In Walthamstow, a town in an outer London borough, Clara Serra López told the BBC that “England wouldn’t be anything without immigration.”
“I’m here because I am an immigrant, a European immigrant, which comes with a lot of privilege,” the demonstrator added. “It is quite an important time for white British and white immigrants to show up for the ones that might be really fearful to come here.”
A bird's-eye view of the huge anti-racist mobilisation happening in Walthamstow right now.
Thousands of people gathered in Newcastle‘s West End on Wednesday evening in a counterprotest in moving scenes outside The Beacon on Westgate Road. The crowd is estimated to have exceeded 3,000 as locals vowed to stand up to the far-right. Demonstrators held up signs reading “Geordies are of all colours” and “We love our West End”.
One attendee of the counterdemonstration vowed: “This is a peaceful protest. We will defend our community.”
“We were expecting big numbers of people, but you do have to see it to believe it. It makes me so happy to have seen so many here,” Madina Mosque Imam Ali Asad, who attended the Newcastle demonstration, told the outlet. “It makes me happy to see the fact that this is beyond race or religion. It’s about community.”
In Northampton, footage shared on social media showed counterprotesters dancing on Kettering Road.
There were also demonstrations in cities including Sheffield and Southampton. In the latter, “around 50 far-right demonstrators turned up,” according toThe Telegraph, “but their chants were drowned out by around 400 counterprotesters who sang ‘there are many, many, many more of us than you.'”
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). I am proud that I participated at one of these protests. It was a community response of people opposing Fascism and nobody else should be permitted to claim credit for it.
