Keir Starmer

Stop arming Israel, MPs demand

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/stop-arming-israel-mps-demand

Palestinians carry the body of a woman found under the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, March 27, 2024

‘It is utterly unconscionable for arms sales to continue’ when Israel has plausibly breached the Genocide Convention, a letter coordinated by Zarah Sultana MP tells the government

MORE than 100 MPs demanded the government halt all arms sales to Israel today because of its genocidal assault on Gaza.

The 108 MPs backed the call in a letter co-ordinated by Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, which was also signed by 27 members of the House of Lords.

It comes as pressure mounts on the British government to give effect to the United Nations security council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza passed earlier this week.

Israel has rejected the resolution and continues its assault. MPs expressed concerns earlier this week that continuing to arm Israel would make Britain complicit in war crimes and other breaches of international law.

Signatories include ex-Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour Middle East minister Lord Peter Hain, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn and former Labour shadow minister Jess Phillips, who resigned from the front-bench in November over the party’s refusal to back a Gaza ceasefire.

Ms Sultana said that “when Israel is ‘plausibly’ in breach of the Genocide Convention and flagrantly violates international law on a daily basis, it is utterly unconscionable for arms sales to Israel to continue.

“But the UK government is refusing to act, making it complicit in this atrocity.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/stop-arming-israel-mps-demand

Response to Rishi Sunak's extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024. Second version of this image with text slightly altered.
Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024. Second version of this image with text slightly altered.
Continue ReadingStop arming Israel, MPs demand

Morning Star: The public want a better funded NHS – it’s politicians who stand in the way

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-want-better-funded-nhs-its-politicians-who-stand-way

BRITAIN is worried about the NHS. The latest Social Attitudes Survey shows less than a quarter of the population are satisfied with the health service. That represents a drop of 29 per cent in just three years — the fastest fall ever.

That’s hardly surprising. Waiting lists at over seven million represent months of pain for people waiting on procedures. Seeing a GP in a hurry is all but impossible in many areas. Waiting times in A&E are breaching targets wherever you look.

This suits private healthcare interests down to the ground.

The number of privatised medical procedures hit a record last year. People who can afford it are going private: people who can’t afford it, the vast majority, are suffering.

The degradation of the NHS, and the consequent pressure for “reform” in the form of ever-greater dependence on for-profit provision, follows a familiar playbook. US academic Noam Chomsky summed it up: “That’s the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”

People are angry about the state of the NHS, but there is certainly no public enthusiasm, or even consent, to increasing the role of private capital.

The NHS’s founder Nye Bevan famously said the NHS would last as long as people had the faith to fight for it.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-want-better-funded-nhs-its-politicians-who-stand-way

Continue ReadingMorning Star: The public want a better funded NHS – it’s politicians who stand in the way

Labour members flee party over Gaza

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-members-flee-party-over-gaza

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, March 11, 2024

LABOUR membership is plummeting according to figures reported to the party’s national executive committee this week.

It has dropped by 25,000 in the first two months of 2024 alone, doubtless as a consequence of the Starmer leadership’s full support for Israeli aggression in Gaza.

The total is now 355,000, more than 200,000 down on its Corbyn-era peak.

This contrasts with the ascending membership figures in the period before Labour won the 1997 general election.

The financial impact of the drop will be mitigated, at the very least, by the party’s increasing reliance on large donations from rich backers.

In a further setback for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, an attempt to bounce the executive into endorsing a new undemocratic structure for Labour BAME members failed, despite prior commitments to establish a democratic and self-organising body.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-members-flee-party-over-gaza

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Continue ReadingLabour members flee party over Gaza

CENSORED: KEIR STARMER’S EMAILS ABOUT ISRAELI WAR CRIMES CASE

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/censored-keir-starmers-emails-about-israeli-war-crimes-case/

Starmer’s time at the CPS is under scrutiny. (Photo: Keir Starmer / Flickr)

The Crown Prosecution Service is refusing to release files on how Starmer blocked the arrest of former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni over alleged war crimes during the brutal bombing of Gaza in 2008.

  • The coalition government changed UK law in 2011 to enable Israeli ministers accused of crimes to visit Britain without fear of prosecution.
  • Declassified asks the CPS to conduct an internal review into its decision to censor the Starmer emails.

In October 2011, Keir Starmer was asked by a human rights group and law firm to issue an arrest warrant for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who was visiting London, over alleged war crimes.

Starmer was then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). But two days later, he blocked the application for Livni’s arrest, citing a Foreign Office decision to grant her visit “special mission” status.

Declassified recently submitted a freedom of information (FOI) request asking for all communications to and from Starmer’s office regarding the case.

These files could shine a crucial light on the discussions which led to Livni’s escape from prosecution.

However, the CPS has censored a number of key emails, claiming that the release of such information would prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.

Starmer’s role in the Livni case requires closer inspection in light of the Labour party’s ongoing support for Israel’s brutal war on Gaza.

One of the redacted emails released to Declassified following our freedom of information request.

Tzipi Livni

Livni was the Israeli minister of foreign affairs between 2006 and 2009, and a member of Israel’s war cabinet during the brutal bombing of Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead.

According to a UN report, “numerous serious violations of international law… were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza”, which killed around 1,400 Palestinians, 333 of whom were children.

Those crimes included “the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians”, as well as a “deliberate and systematic policy… to target industrial sites and water installations”.

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/censored-keir-starmers-emails-about-israeli-war-crimes-case/

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

I remember publishing about this case of Zippy Livny escaping prosecution but there’s no sign of it …

Continue ReadingCENSORED: KEIR STARMER’S EMAILS ABOUT ISRAELI WAR CRIMES CASE

Journalist Owen Jones leaves Keir Starmer’s genocide-supporting ‘Labour’ party

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/21/labour-party-cancelling-membership-policies

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The assault on Gaza, the great crime of our age, adds moral indecency to the pile of dishonesty and vacuity. When Starmer declared Israel had the right to cut off energy and water to Palestinian civilians, he did so as a human rights lawyer who understands the Geneva conventions. After letting shadow cabinet ministers defend him, he claimed it “has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines”. We all have political red lines: mine is supporting what would amount to war crimes against innocent civilians, toddlers and newborn babies among them, then gaslighting the public over doing so.

Where is my gratitude for Starmer delivering a now inevitable landslide victory, you may ask? Well, he didn’t force Boris Johnson and his cronies to violate their own pandemic rules, or to trash the NHS, or oversee the worst squeeze in living standards in history. Nor did he propel to power Liz Truss, whose unhinged economic experiment crashed the economy – the moment when the electorate turned on this Tory party for good.

The absolute power a landslide victory will give Labour should scare you. When Starmer allies deployed antisemitic tropes – with one joking about a “run on silver shekels” when two Jewish businessmen missed out on peerages, and another calling a Jewish Tory donor a “puppet master” – an apology was deemed to be sufficient. When another racially abused a journalist and had a sexual harassment complaint upheld, they were reinstated after investigation.

Contrast this with Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black female MP, who was suspended after immediately apologising for an Observer letter in which she argued that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people are not subject to racism “all their lives”. She has been left in limbo for 10 months and counting while the party investigates – only for Labour to use the racist abuse directed at her by a Tory donor for political capital, while still refusing to reinstate her.

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Continue ReadingJournalist Owen Jones leaves Keir Starmer’s genocide-supporting ‘Labour’ party