Labour Party

Thousands March to US Embassy in London With Message for Trump: ‘Hands Off Gaza’

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration expressing support for Palestinian rights in London on February 15, 2025. (Photo: Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor called the U.S. president’s plan to permanently force Palestinians out of Gaza “completely immoral and illegal, and also impractical and absurd.”

Thousands of people marched to the United States Embassy in London on Saturday to protest President Donald Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for the Gaza Strip, a proposal that has been roundly condemned as unlawful and monstrous by the U.N., international human rights organizations, and Palestinians living in the enclave decimated by relentless Israeli bombing.

The march came after Trump doubled down on his proposal for the U.S. to “take over” Gaza after forcibly and permanently displacing Palestinians from the territory.

“Think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it and we’ll slowly—very slowly, we’re in no rush—develop it,” Trump told reporters last weekend.

Marchers carried signs Sunday expressing contempt for the president’s proposal, which Amnesty International denounced as “inflammatory, outrageous, and shameful.”

Protesters march to the U.S. Embassy in London on February 15, 2025. (Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Stephen Kapos, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, toldAFP on Saturday that Trump’s proposal is “completely immoral and illegal, and also impractical and absurd.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Kapos added, “but it does a lot of damage simply stating that as an endgame.”

The mass demonstration in London, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organizations, followed news that Hamas freed three additional Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for the release of more than 360 Palestinians who were held in Israeli prisons.

The exchange was part of a tenuous cease-fire deal reached in January after 15 months of incessant U.S.-backed Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The assault’s impact on Palestinians in Gaza was, and continues to be, catastrophic. According to an article published in The Lancet earlier this month, Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip “generated a life expectancy loss of more than 30 years during the first 12 months of the war, nearly halving prewar levels.”

“Actual losses are likely to be higher,” the researchers noted, stressing that their estimate was conservative and “did not account for the indirect effect of the war.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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
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
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Continue ReadingThousands March to US Embassy in London With Message for Trump: ‘Hands Off Gaza’

The Chancellor and her expenses before she became an MP

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg75jr5284o

Rachel Reeves has had a difficult start to her ministerial career.

As well as Labour’s new chancellor taking on the challenges of the UK economy, she has faced tricky questions about her past.

They began with scrutiny of her online CV late last year.

On the professional networking site LinkedIn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed to have worked as an economist at Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) immediately before becoming an MP.

One of those who challenged it was a retired former colleague, Kev Gillett.

In a public post on LinkedIn, which he asked followers to share, he wrote: “Back in 2009 Rt Hon Rachel Reeves worked 3 levels below me. Just facts. She was a Complaints Support Manager at LBG/HBOS. Not an Economist. #factcheck.”

In fact it emerged that she had worked in a managerial role within the bank’s complaint handling department and her LinkedIn profile was updated to remove the claim.

Thin grey line

Rachel Reeves’s online CV exaggerated how long she spent working at the Bank of England

Thin grey line

Gillett also made another claim about Reeves’s time at the bank from 2006 to 2009, writing that she: “Nearly got sacked due to an expenses scandal where the 3 senior managers were all signing off each others expenses.”

Reeves’s team vigorously denied the allegations.

…

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg75jr5284o

dizzy: I’ve quoted the start of a fairly long article from the BBC by Billy Kenber, Politics investigations correspondent and Phil Kemp, Politics producer. It is the report into their investigation of UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ errors in her reported career history and an expenses fraud investigation at her former employer Halifax Bank of Scotland.

Continue ReadingThe Chancellor and her expenses before she became an MP

Morning Star Editorial: Double standards on refugees: the Trump-Starmer conundrum

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-double-standards-refugees-trump-starmer-conundrum

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer departs 10 Downing Street, London, to attend Prime Minister’s Questions at the Houses of Parliament, February 12, 2025

DOUBLE standards. The Prime Minister vows to close a “loophole” that allowed a Gaza family, whose home was destroyed by Israeli bombing, to claim asylum under a scheme designed for Ukrainian refugees.

There are deserving and undeserving refugees. Ukrainians are white, and fleeing from an army we don’t like, Russia’s. Palestinians aren’t and they are fleeing from an army we advise, fund and equip.

Labour’s anti-immigrant braggadocio won’t shorten NHS waiting lists or lower housing costs. Its zeal for action contrasts with its foot-dragging over employment rights and its indifference to rising energy and water bills. Keir Starmer only punches down: he cowers before the corporate crooks bleeding this country dry but talks tough when it comes to the powerless and penniless.

Most of all he cowers before Donald Trump. British laws can be amended if they offend the US president: an online safety Bill may be reshaped to please Elon Musk, and proper taxation of the digital sector’s huge profits may be permanently shelved.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-double-standards-refugees-trump-starmer-conundrum

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Double standards on refugees: the Trump-Starmer conundrum

‘A dark moment in British history’ as government blocks refugees from gaining citizenship

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/a-dark-moment-in-british-history-as-government-blocks-refugees-from-gaining-citizenship

A group of people are brought in to Dover, Kent, by the RNLI Dungeness Lifeboat following a small boat incident in the Channel, December 28, 2024

IMMIGRATION rule changes blocking refugees from gaining citizenship are counterproductive and a dark moment in British history, campaigners warned today.

Under the updated Home Office “good character” guidance which took effect on Monday, applicants who entered Britain illegally will “normally” be refused citizenship, regardless of how long they have lived here.

The new rules specifically target those who arrived via dangerous routes, stating: “A person who applies for citizenship from February 10 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey, will normally be refused citizenship.”

A dangerous journey, the guidance adds, includes but is not limited to travelling by small boat or being concealed in a vehicle.

The change comes as Labour’s new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which scraps the previous Tory government’s Rwanda plan, passed its first hurdle in the Commons on Monday.

The Bill includes new criminal offences and grants counter-terror-style powers to police and enforcement agencies in a bid to crack down on people-smuggling gangs in the Channel.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/a-dark-moment-in-british-history-as-government-blocks-refugees-from-gaining-citizenship

Continue Reading‘A dark moment in British history’ as government blocks refugees from gaining citizenship

Heathrow expansion cannot be quick fix to economy, campaigners warn

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/heathrow-expansion-cannot-be-quick-fix-to-economy-campaigners-warn

Activists from Fossil Free London and Green New Deal Rising take part in a protest against a third runway at Heathrow, and expansion at Gatwick and Luton, outside Siemens Healthineers in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, January 29, 2025

HEATHROW expansion cannot be the quick fix to the economy, campaigners warned today after the government backed a new multibillion-pound investment programme.

The airport’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye announced funding for upgrades and expansion ahead of its proposal for a third runway, expected to be submitted to the government this summer.

The government said that the investment programme will secure thousands of steel jobs by increasing the demand for British-made steel.

But polling by climate charities suggests a majority of the public believes expansion is the “wrong priority,” with 67 per cent of respondents also saying they did not see much, if any, benefit to taxpayers.

No Third Runway Coalition chairman Paul McGuinness called the announcement “almost Orwellian,” arguing that the government had relied on a Heathrow-commissioned report to promote the project rather than its own Treasury assessment.

…

Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said that the “real winners” will be Mr Woldbye and “the rest of the polluting aviation industry.”

“The only ‘perks’ for most people will be noise, air pollution and climate emissions,” he said.

Dr Parr said a third runway is “bad economics,” saying: “Instead of picking up any old polluting project from the discard pile, the Chancellor should focus on green industries that can attract investment and bring economic and social benefits for years to come, like secure jobs, affordable energy bills and cheaper, better transport.”

…

Continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/heathrow-expansion-cannot-be-quick-fix-to-economy-campaigners-warn

Continue ReadingHeathrow expansion cannot be quick fix to economy, campaigners warn