Hunt gambles on tax as services crumble
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/hunt-gambles-tax-services-crumble
PUBLIC services are at still greater risk as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt gambled the Tories’ election hopes on a last-ditch tax-cutting Budget.
Mr Hunt announced a 2 per cent cut in National Insurance in a bid to put more money in workers’ pockets before Britain goes to the polls later this year.
But the price will be a major squeeze in public spending in the next parliament, with many department budgets likely to fall in real terms.
The Chancellor also abolished the non-dom tax rule which lets the wealthiest avoid paying taxes on overseas earnings, a key Labour pledge, and brought more families within the scope of child benefit payments.
The Budget therefore leaves Labour more politically denuded than ever — it will either have to find other ways to raise the money it had planned for public services from scrapping the non-dom loophole, or more likely drop residual spending commitments altogether.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told MPs that Labour supported the National Insurance cut too, leaving the parties exchanging rhetorical sound and fury on economic policy but with no significant differences.
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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/hunt-gambles-tax-services-crumble
Australian PM First Western Leader Referred to ICC as ‘Accessory to Genocide in Gaza’
Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
More than 100 lawyers endorsed the referral, which points to the military, intelligence, and rhetorical support Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has provided to the Israeli government.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is one of several Western leaders who have provided political and material support of the Israeli government and military over the past five months as their bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 30,000 people, but on Monday he became the first to be referred to the International Criminal Court for being an “accessory to genocide.”
More than 100 lawyers supported the referral under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, arguing that Albanese, a member of the Labor Party, as well as members of his Cabinet and of Parliament, have provided Israel with “rhetorical support in their public statements, their press conferences, their speeches” as well as material assistance, as attorney Sheryn Omeri told ABC‘s “News Breakfast.”
Omeri said the aid Australia has “most particularly” provided since Israel began attacking Gaza has been the export of F-35 fighter jet parts as well as military intelligence through the government’s surveillance work at Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap in Australia’s Northern Territory.
While Albanese has recently called on Israel to respect international law, said Omeri, “it’s been months since the 7th of October, 2023, and between then and now there has been very little in the way of urging restraint on Israel and discouraging what the International Court of Justice found on the 26th of January was a plausible case of genocide.”
The 92-page document compiled by the legal team lays out a number of specific ways Albanese and other Australian officials have acted as an accessory to genocide, including:
- Freezing $6 million in funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East amid a humanitarian crisis based on unsubstantiated claims by Israel;
- Providing military aid and approving defence exports to Israel, which could be used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the course of the prima facie commission of genocide and crimes against humanity;
- Ambiguously deploying an Australian military contingent to the region, where its location and exact role have not been disclosed; and
- Permitting Australians, either explicitly or implicitly, to travel to Israel to join the IDF and take part in its attacks on Gaza.
“The Rome Statute provides four modes of individual criminal responsibility, two of which are accessorial,” Omeri explained in a statement.
Along with Albanese, U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are among the Western leaders who have repeatedly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza—despite the genocidal intent expressed in numerous public statements by Israeli leaders.
Biden was sued in federal court in January for alleged “complicity in the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide.” That case is still making its way through the U.S. appeals process.
Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- Turkey, Malaysia Back South Africa’s ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel ›
- Amnesty Probe Finds ‘Damning Evidence Of War Crimes’ By Israel In Gaza ›
Morning Star: The Tories’ paltry 15 per cent doesn’t translate into enthusiasm for Starmer
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories’-paltry-15-cent-doesn’t-translate-enthusiasm-starmer
…
Fewer people think Starmer will make a competent prime minister than those convinced he won’t.
Crunch the numbers whichever way you want, and we still have an opposition that can win by default but without much enthusiasm.
While an element of this is the lack of trust in Starmer that is the inevitable consequence of his mendacity much is down to the failure of the party to make a challenge to the anti-working-class policies that unite neoliberals of all “parties of government.”
That is the measure of the problems workers face.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories’-paltry-15-cent-doesn’t-translate-enthusiasm-starmer
‘Utterly shameful’: Suspended Labour politician slams Starmer’s Gaza stance
Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
Four London councillors have been disciplined by their local party after calling for a ceasefire
A Labour politician suspended for backing a ceasefire in Gaza has labelled the party leadership’s stance on the conflict as “utterly shameful”.
Martin Abrams was one of four councillors in Lambeth, south London, suspended by the local Labour group on Monday night after voting for a motion put forward by the local Green Party.
It called for “an immediate ceasefire and the end to human rights atrocities in the Israel/Palestine conflict”.
Speaking to openDemocracy, Abrams hit out at Keir Starmer and the Labour leadership for its position on the conflict, which has seen over 50 Labour councillors resign since 7 October.
“It is truly a moment of great shame for the Labour Party for us to be in this place,” Abrams said. “I will continue speaking out for what I believe is right because there is a complete absence of that happening from Keir Starmer and the Labour Party leadership.”
Abrams said Starmer’s leadership on Gaza has been “utterly shameful”, adding: “It has been from the very beginning.”
He referenced an interview on LBC radio in which Starmer, the UK’s former top prosecutor, appeared to sanction collective punishment of the Palestinian people by Israel – which is illegal under international law. Starmer has since denied this is what he meant.
Last week, chaos ensued in Parliament as Labour refused to back an SNP-tabled motion on a ceasefire. Although Labour has now supported a ceasefire, the party has been criticised for doing so through its own parliamentary motion, which was less critical of Israel than the SNP’s original text.
Abrams, who is Jewish, said Lambeth Labour’s decision to suspend him had been “disproportionate” considering it was a vote on “calling an end to the slaughter of children”. But he said he would not resign from his position as a councillor and would continue “standing up for the oppressed people”.
End the bloodshed
Abrams told openDemocracy that the crisis had taken a toll on councillors hoping to represent their ward.
“Many of us are very emotionally impacted by this because we’re solid members of our local communities. Some of us are Jewish, some of us are Muslim,” he said. “The vast majority of us are humanitarians and want to see an end to the bloodshed and the fighting.”
Lambeth Labour, which decided to suspend the four members following a disciplinary hearing on Monday, had said the motion risked “exacerbating the impacts of the deeply worrying rise in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crime across London witnessed in recent weeks.”
Sonia Winifred, another Labour councillor who voted for the motion, resigned as a councillor after being suspended. Winifred is a veteran Windrush campaigner, and said on Twitter the decision had left her with “no choice” but to resign.
Grassroots group Momentum said: “This is an outrageous attack on a Jewish Labour councillor for having the temerity to stand up for the people of Gaza. Martin is a principled socialist and internationalist – and it is shocking that he has been forced out for standing up for a position endorsed by the majority of voters. This anti-democratic decision should be immediately reversed.”
Lambeth Labour has been contacted for comment.
Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
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