Keir Starmer

HOW ISRAEL FUNDS UK PARLIAMENTARY STAFF

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Aides to Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting took Israel lobby funding. (Photo: Stefan Rousseau via Alamy)

Israel is quietly financing assistants of British MPs, Declassified has found.

Israel has paid for at least a dozen UK parliamentary staff to visit the country on special delegations in the last five years.

A further 18 staffers have accepted funding or hospitality from pro-Israel lobby organisations in Britain such as Labour Friends of Israel and We Believe in Israel.

Several worked for MPs in Keir Starmer’s front bench team, including shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting and shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson.

Our investigation found how the Israeli embassy in London, its ministry of foreign affairs and associated lobby groups seek to influence not only MPs but also their assistants.

Declassified previously revealed that one in four British MPs in the last parliament accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups or individuals. 

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Israel lobby organisations have also sought to gain backdoor influence by funding, meeting, and providing hospitality to ministers’ special advisers, known as SPADs.

Special advisers are exempt from the Civil Service Code’s requirement of political impartiality. 

Governmental departments are therefore [not?] required to publish the gifts and hospitality that they receive.

Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden accepted funding from CFI when he was David Cameron’s SPAD in 2014. 

Dowden was a prospective parliamentary candidate for Hertsmere at that time.

CFI paid for a special adviser to Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude to travel to Israel that same year, while in 2015 another four Downing Street special advisers received hospitality from CFI.

The group has continued to lobby SPADs in the prime minister’s and deputy PM’s office, as well as the leader of the House of Lords.

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Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

Continue ReadingHOW ISRAEL FUNDS UK PARLIAMENTARY STAFF

As she is arrested, a Youth Demand Activist explains “the Labour Party is complicit in Genocide.”

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As she was arrested following a flash sit down Gaza ceasefire now protest at Oxford Circus earlier this afternoon (Saturday 22 June 2024), a Youth Demand Activist declared that “the Labour Party is complicit in genocide. They refuse to call for a ceasefire. They refuse to stop buy and selling weapons with Israel. These weapons are creating tens of thousands of deaths. Our government is able to do something about this but they refuse to;” adding “We can not vote Tory. We can not vote Labour. We must act. We must take to the streets. We must civilly resist. Join us at YouthDemand.org.” My own comment – Although some Labour Party MPs have made some fairly empty and vague declarations in support of a “sustainable” ceasefire, it’s clear they are not willing to declare that Israel must commit to one immediately, let alone to exert any real pressure on the Israeli government.

As of 11 June 2024, at least 37,702 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, including more than 15,000 children. An estimated 10,000 are missing, of whom most are probably dead.

There is also an unknown number of additional deaths due to excess mortality from food shortages, disease and difficulties in obtaining essential medical care and medicines, while more than 84,000 Palestinians have been injured, many of them with life-changing injuries including many amputations.

According to the United Nations, as of 9 June, more than half of all residential buildings have been destroyed or damaged but with some key infrastructure the destruction is even more devastating – including 130 ambulances, 267 places of worship, 80% of commercial facilities and 88% of school buildings damaged or destroyed. Additionally some 83% of groundwater wells are no longer operational.

Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

Continue ReadingAs she is arrested, a Youth Demand Activist explains “the Labour Party is complicit in Genocide.”

Youth Demand shit in Rishi Sunak’s private lake

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Youth Demand shit in Rishi Sunak's private lake 25/6/24
Youth Demand shit in Rishi Sunak’s private lake 25/6/24

As a thankyou and a parting gift to Rishi Sunak and the Tories for the last 14 years of service, a Youth Demand supporter has ‘sunk the Bismarck’ in Rishi Sunak’s lake. Youth Demand is a campaign calling for a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the incoming UK government to revoke all new oil and gas licences granted since 2021.

At around 12:50 pm, Oliver, 21, a student from Manchester visited Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire mansion and ‘murdered a brown snake’ in the multi-millionaires’ lake, whilst wearing a shirt emblazoned with ‘Eat Shit Rishi’. Police arrived on the scene almost immediately and detained four people, including a press photographer, which may lead to their arrest.

Before shitting in the lake, Oliver said: 

“We have so much to thank the Tories for: from crumbling schools, shit in the rivers and a collapsing NHS; to creating a nation with more food banks than McDonalds and 4.3 million UK children living in poverty. From allowing their mates to get filthy rich from selling weapons to battle-test on toddlers in Gaza, or by drilling for more oil as the world burns – it’s quite a legacy!” 

“Yet this shit-show is set to continue with yet another party led by a pathological liar who will be taking office next. Both Labour and the Tories are content to keep shitting on Gaza, and on every future generation, by continuing weapons trading with Israel and by not revoking all oil and gas licences granted since 2021. The two party system is just two cheeks of the same arse. We deserve better! Take action at youthdemand.org.”

Youth Demand shit in Rishi Sunak's private lake 25/6/24
Youth Demand shit in Rishi Sunak’s private lake 25/6/24

A Youth Demand spokesperson said:

“From Number 10 to Number 2, let’s face it: he’s done a shit job, and the Tories are facing an electoral wipe-out. As a final goodbye, we’re issuing a ‘code-brown’ to Mr Sunak and his colleagues in government for 14 years of total failure, by delivering them some much needed moral fibre. They’ve landed us all up shit-creek and so we hope they accept these ‘gorilla fingers’ as a heartfelt gesture of our feelings towards them.” 

“But although we’ve unloaded some timber, we’re not out of the woods yet. Our political system is broken. Labour has to lose the policies from the bottom-drawer and convince floating voters by putting the skids on arms trading with Israel and flushing all oil and gas projects licensed since 2021- policies which stain the UK’s reputation. It’s a big job, but it’s time to sort shit out. Join us for a week of action in London from the 13th July, sign up at youth demand.org.” 

This mansion is one of several properties owned by Mr Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty. Murty owns a reported £400 million stake in her billionaire father’s company Infosys, which  signed a $1.5 billion deal with BP in May 2023. Sunak and Murty bought the £2 million Grade-II listed Georgian manor house in the picturesque village of Kirby Sigston, before Mr Sunak became MP for Richmond in 2015. However, this isn’t the only property in the couple’s extensive repertoire, which include a £6.6 million mansion in Kensington, London, and a vacation home in California. The couple have an estimated combined net worth of £730 million.

Last year 16 Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested outside Sunak’s London Mansion, after Louise Harris sang her chart-topping track ‘We Tried’.

Young people are sick of the shit-show. We deserve better. People from all over the country are coming together to resist. Youth Demand will be taking action in Central London from the 13th-20th July. 

Continue ReadingYouth Demand shit in Rishi Sunak’s private lake

Labour and Tory campaigns flounder as betting row deepens

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-and-tory-campaigns-flounder-betting-row-deepens

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the launch of the Scottish Conservative manifesto at the Apex Grassmarket Hotel in Edinburgh, while on the General Election campaign trail, June 24, 2024

BOTH major parties are looking like busted flushes, Britain’s top polling guru suggested today, as PM Rishi Sunak struggled to contain the Tory gambling row.

BBC elections guru John Curtice said that neither Tories nor Labour were having a “fruitful” campaign, with each having lost 4 per cent in the polls since the election was called a month ago.

That is clearly worse news for the Conservatives than Labour, since it leaves the gap between the two unchanged at 20 per cent, putting Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s shrivelling party in Commons landslide territory.

That prospect is reinforced by the scandal over insider betting by Tory candidates and senior officials, which Mr Sunak seems incapable of containing.

Former minister Tobias Ellwood conceded today that the party was certain to lose additional seats — “I have no doubt about it” — because of the controversy, which has seen the Gambling Commission launch a probe into whether four top Tories used prior knowledge of the election date to cash in.

Mr Ellwood, who is standing for re-election, said that the row was overshadowing the Tory election campaign and that “the public wants to see clearer, robust action.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-and-tory-campaigns-flounder-betting-row-deepens

Continue ReadingLabour and Tory campaigns flounder as betting row deepens

Labour’s Otherworldly Manifesto

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Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/52233/labours-otherworldly-manifesto

Keir Starmer’s party is set to win by a landslide, but its ambitions are simultaneously unrealistic and uninspiring

AUTHOR: Keir Milburn

“Stability is Change!” This seemingly paradoxical, almost Orwellian statement is the principal slogan of the Labour Party’s current parliamentary election campaign. Labour leader Keir Starmer used the slogan at the party’s manifesto launch, and it provides a key prism for understanding the manifesto and its weaknesses.

There is little doubt that the UK electorate is in the mood for change. The widespread, off-stated consensus in the country is that nothing works. The National Health Service is so chronically underfunded that doctor’s appointments are difficult to get and long waiting lists proliferate. The trains are shockingly expensive but utterly unreliable.

The list could go on and on, but the image most frequently used to sum up the situation comes from the failure of the privatized water services. A lack of investment in infrastructure accompanied by the looting of those companies for huge shareholder dividend payouts has led to the near constant release of untreated sewage into the UK’s river system. It flows from there onto our beaches. The British are quite literally swimming in shit!

These problems are identified quite clearly in the Labour Party manifesto, but the diagnosis of their causes and therefore their solutions proves much less convincing. Labour may have a plan to win in July, but how it will govern in the interests of its voters is anybody’s guess.

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The totality of Labour’s spending pledges amounts to just 0.2 percent of GDP, smaller even than the Conservative pledges of 0.8 percent and dwarfed by the previous two Labour manifestos, which promised 2.1 percent and 3.2 percent respectively. Even the pro-market Institute for Fiscal Studies called Labour’s plans “tiny, going on trivial”.

These policies do not point to stability, not least because they do not address the 18 billion pounds of government spending cuts that the Conservatives have already baked into the government budget going forward. The effects of implementing such cuts on government services — which have already suffered so badly under 14 years of severe austerity — makes it hard to imagine that Labour will stick to this commitment. It seems likely that money will be found to prevent the worst of these cuts through technical changes in accounting between the government and the notionally independent Bank of England.

Beyond this paddling, however, the need for investment in the UK is huge. Both public and private investment in the country has collapsed since 2008. It has the lowest business investment in the G7 and ranks just twenty-eighth out of the 31 OECD countries. In the face of this, Labour, hamstrung by self-imposed fiscal rules on bringing down government debt and pledges not to raise the main forms of taxation, are promising so little investment that their plans seem unbelievable.

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Until last February, Labour was promising to immediately strengthen workers’ rights through a New Deal for Workers, and to spend 28 billion pounds per year to decarbonize the economy through its Green Prosperity Plan. The Labour Party’s current openness to corporate funding and lobbying, including the imposition of over 30 parliamentary candidates with corporate lobbying backgrounds, has led to a dramatic watering down of these pledges. The Green Prosperity Plan has been reduced to just 3.5 billion pounds, but the form that spending will take reveals another logic or worldview which may come to the fore as crises mount.

The word “securonomics”, an ugly portmanteau favoured by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, makes an appearance in the manifesto, introducing the idea that public investment should support and de-risk private investment in strategically key sectors. The chief vehicle for this will be a National Wealth Fund “capitalised with £7.3 billion over the course of the next parliament”. What precisely this will look like has yet to be determined, but The National Wealth Fund “will have a target of attracting three pounds of private investment for every one pound of public investment”. This is an explicit return to and acceleration of the kind of public-private partnerships that lost legitimacy in the UK during the fallout from the disastrous Public Finance Initiative under New Labour.

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Recommended article at https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/52233/labours-otherworldly-manifesto

Continue ReadingLabour’s Otherworldly Manifesto