I am aware that I have a unique internet connection which I assume is your doing. I certainly hold you responsible for it anyway. I am aware for example that BBC Radio is delayed by 40 seconds for me and I can’t access it at all on my phone.
I’d like to place some bets on the election which I am prevented from doing. Please withdraw this restriction. I confirm that I don’t have any inside knowledge and am not intending to commit frauds like fifteen is it now? of James Cleverly’s mates.
27/6/24
I’ve found a convoluted way to do it which I would not normally do, not sure that I want to bet anymore!
Home Secretary James Cleverly speaking to the media outside BBC Broadcasting House in London, after appearing on the BBC One current affairs programme, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, June 23, 2024
HOME SECRETARY James Cleverly was left red-faced today after a recording of his parliamentary aide describing the Rwanda policy as “crap” was leaked to the BBC.
James Sunderland, who is standing for re-election in Bracknell, made the comments after asking if no-one was recording at a Young Conservatives’ event in April.
“The policy is crap, OK? It’s crap,” he said, but argued that the effect of the policy was what mattered. “There is no doubt at all that when those first flights take off, that it will send such a shockwave across the Channel that the gangs will stop.”
On Sky News today Mr Cleverly insisted that Mr Sunderland was “very supportive” of the plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to the east African country.
“People have stayed in Rafah thinking it’s safe and hoping that global pressure would stop an invasion. But now we are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed and let down,” one aid worker said.
A Palestinian who died as a result of Israeli attacks is brought to Al Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza on May 12, 2024. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“It’s a real diplomatic punch,” a former Israeli diplomat said. “Israel would have to take it very seriously.”
“I’d make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet,” said Bill McKibben. “If we don’t understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time.”
“If someone is speaking more about ‘violent encampments’ than they are about violent genocide of the Palestinians, they have a problem reflective of deep and dangerous biases,” said one supporter.
Just Stop Oil activists demonstrate in Parliament Square, Westminster, central London, to demand the government immediately halt all new oil, gas and coal projects in Britain, October 30, 2023Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Rees-Mogg claimed this was “nonsense” and that no fossil fuel subsidies were handed out. He argued that they were tax breaks not subsidies and that the two were “completely different”, before cutting off the interview telling Vince to “do your homework”.
The energy boss did, and hit back with a video in which he explains how tax breaks are subsidies, as laid out in a piece of Brexit legislation passed when Rees-Mogg himself was Brexit Minister.
Vince refers to a piece of Brexit legislation, the Subsidy Control Act 2022, which replaced EU laws with new British legislation which he said lays out that tax breaks are in fact counted as subsidies.
In the video Vince said: “It begs the question, Mr Mogg, were you not paying attention when you were Brexit Minister passing pieces of legislation, did you not know that it was EU rules that say that tax breaks are subsidies and UK rules as well, both inside and outside the EU? Have you not done your homework?”
The New Economics Foundation has estimated that oil and gas extractors could receive up to £18.5bn in tax relief between 2023 and 2026, while the UK government gave fossil fuel companies £20bn more in support than renewables from 2015 to 2023, research found.
Campaigners have said that owners of the Rosebank development, a massive new, controversial oilfield in the North Sea, are set to receive around £3bn in tax breaks from the UK government.
The british green energy industrialist was praised online for his comeback.
A professor of law wrote on X: “Indeed, and a tax break can also be a subsidy (provided that it is specific) under the rules of the blessed WTO, which Rees-Mogg used to praise so highly. It’s Rees-Mogg who did not do his homework here.”
Liberty’s lawyers say police feedback was ‘directly incorporated into the final text’ of Braverman’s anti-protest laws | Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images
High Court told government only sought feedback from people it knew would agree with its controversial changes
Only police were consulted on anti-protest laws before they were forced through by the UK government, according to human rights lawyers suing the home secretary.
Campaign group Liberty has been in court this week challenging James Cleverly over amendments to the Public Order Act that were pushed through by his predecessor, Suella Braverman, last year.
Liberty was given permission to take legal action against Braverman in October after she used secondary legislation – subject to less parliamentary scrutiny – to strengthen police powers to shut down protests that cause “more than minor disruption to the life of the community”.
The group says Braverman’s actions amounted to a “serious overreach” and that she acted unlawfully because the changes to the law had already been rejected in the House of Lords.
And Liberty has labelled a consultation on the proposed laws in 2022 as “one-sided” and “unfair” – because the Home Office only consulted police. The government gave the Met, Staffordshire Police, Essex Police, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the College of Policing opportunities to give their views on the legislation, but did not seek input from anyone who might be impacted by the laws.
Liberty argued: “The [home secretary] voluntarily embarked upon a process of consultation about the contents and drafting of the regulations but then only consulted a narrow group of stakeholders in support of the amendments rather than an even-handed group representative of all those whose interests may be adversely impacted.”
Its lawyers also say police feedback was “directly incorporated into the final text” of the amendments to the Public Order Act, including on the definition of “serious disruption to the life of the community”.
The new powers have been criticised by Liberty and other human rights groups due to the vagueness of the new language, which campaigners say allows police to shut down almost any protests. The changes forced through by Braverman mean officers can interfere with and arrest anyone taking part in protests that they believe will cause “more than minor disruption to the life of the community”.
Police feedback on “cumulative disruption” was also included in the final amendments to the act. Under this law, officers must take into account all “relevant cumulative disruption”, regardless of whether or not your protest is related to any other protest or disruption in the same area. Before this amendment, there was no explicit requirement for police to consider this.
While the government held multiple meetings with police representatives in December 2022 to seek input and “refine policy”, Liberty argues that the fact that no rights groups or members of the public were consulted is rooted in “procedural unfairness” and that the changes must be reversed.
Katy Watts, Liberty’s lawyer leading the case said: “The government has shown it’s determined to put itself above the law, avoid scrutiny and become untouchable – so it’s no surprise it only consulted people it knew would agree with its new law.
“Our democracy exists to make sure a government can’t just do whatever it wants, and an important part of that is consulting a wide range of voices on new laws – especially those likely to raise reasonable concerns. This improves government decision making and helps to make our laws better. The government’s failure to do this is just one of the ways it acted unlawfully when it forced these powers though.”
The laws were initially brought in to clamp down on protests by climate activist groups like Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, and Extinction Rebellion, but other protesters are now also being targeted.
The government has accused pro-Palestine protesters of “hijacking legitimate protests”, “shouting down and coercing elected representatives”, and has also called them “un-British” and “undemocratic”.
In a new ‘defending democracy policing protocol’ released this week, the government pledged £31m of additional funding to protect MPs after safety fears were raised.
The Home Office said it wants to “protect the democratic process from intimidation” but according to its own policy paper, only met with police representatives from the National Police Chiefs Council, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, and the College of Policing.
The Home Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The two-day hearing ended yesterday and Liberty’s lawyers expect a decision could take up to three months.
We have been told that all marchers are Islamists or “extremists” and present Home Secretary James Cleverley has demanded that the organisers call them off since they have “made their point.”
However, the government has not yet got that point. It continues to thwart efforts to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
And the propaganda overlooks the fact that the repeated huge demonstrations have been almost entirely peaceful. Such few arrests as there have been have been mainly about the police stopping the display of what they regard as unacceptable slogans or images.
It is clear that the Establishment is rattled by the intensity of opposition to its pro-Israel policy and by the fact that the cosy Commons consensus is rejected by the country outside, which overwhelmingly wants a ceasefire.
And masses repeatedly mobilised on the streets always rattle the state, more or less regardless of the issue. These protests are still more menacing to the elite because they challenge the prerogatives of imperialism.
It is no surprise therefore that state prosecutor Starmer’s Labour has hardly raised a peep of protest.
But the solidarity protests are the voice of democracy. The bipartisan move against them is a threat to all our freedoms. The left must stand against the hysteria and assert our democratic right to hold politicians to account.
